I’ve had some question on how I fix the totes. Its a relatively easy task. I typically remove the tote, clean the break and simply glue it back together.

The hard part is holding it together while the glue dries.

I’ve tried several ways. here is what I do.

But the way that seems to work for me best:

I typically use whatever glue is handy, either titebond II or III. I asked this group on LJ’s in another thread, and the samer answer came back several times.

Update: Since I wrote this I have had a couple handles rebreak using regular glue. Having done some gun smithing and stock repairs in the past, I know this epoxy will hold anything. It also comes with a coloring agent which helps hide the line if its not a nice clean break. A kit would do a lot of totes.

Great pics. It seems that most planes I find have a broken tote, so I’ve got to go through the same process. The nice part, as you know, is ending up with a repair that is virtually invisible. I use a similar jig to hold the pieces together. It’s the key to a good fix. The most frustrating ones are the previous (poor) repairs that you have to undo first. Way to go. -SST

I like the blocks idea for clamping in the vice. A 50s Craftsman smoother my son gifted to me yesterday has a broken tote (flea market find, and will be it’s own blog post for the story that goes along with the find), so this type of restore action is in my very close future!

-- Don't anthropomorphize your handplanes. They hate it when you do that. -- OldTools Archive --